Have you felt like you’ve lost your motivation to do anything but the bare minimum at work, at home, or in your personal life? Have you been overloaded with responsibilities, or doubtful that you’re up to meeting them? Are you exhausted, achy, irritable, and sleeping poorly?
What does burnout feel like?
All of the above, and more, are signs of burnout. Burnout is the feeling of exhaustion, hopelessness, and disinterest that comes from an overload of responsibilities and the lack of spark that keeps you motivated to manage it all. When you have too much on your plate at work, at home, or in your personal life, your mind and body may force you to slow down, sapping your motivation.
Symptoms of burnout:
- Lack of motivation, a feeling of emptiness or disinterest in your life
- Exhaustion, insomnia, difficulty resting
- Irritability and lack of patience or caring about people in your life
- Avoiding your loved ones and deprioritizing your family and social life
- Physical aches and pains
- Increased susceptibility to illness
- Substance use or abuse
- Feeling like you aren’t yourself, or that the things happening in your life don’t feel real
- An urge to self-harm or suicidal ideation
Burnout doesn’t hit you all at once. It often starts with the feeling of needing to work harder and take on more which, unfortunately, makes burnout worse. From there, deprioritizing yourself and the things and people you enjoy can slide into complete disinterest in anything, including work, and you may begin avoiding your responsibilities. After that, emptiness and despair can grow, and full-blown depression can develop.
Thankfully, burnout is not permanent, and healing from burnout and rediscovering your motivation is possible.
Finding motivation after burnout
Burnout saps your motivation, making it hard to want to do even the things you once enjoyed most in life. Motivation is your reason for doing, the guiding force behind your wanting to engage with your responsibilities in life. Finding motivation after burnout requires two things: rest, and change.
Rest is a necessity, especially when you’re in the midst of burnout. Rest means prioritizing sleep, as well as staying present in the moment and encouraging your attention to return to the now when it goes wandering—but it’s more than just sleep and mindfulness. Rest is about taking time to unplug and unwind, seeking out activities you love, nourishing your body with good foods that make you feel satisfied, and exercising in ways that feel energizing, not punishing.
Aside from rest, making change in your life that addresses the sources of your burnout is the way to create a life that has room for motivation.
Life coaching for burnout
Life coaching is great for motivation, and is more specific and action-focused than therapy; your life coach will help you prioritize what you want to do and guide you through ways to get the work done, so you can get started on moving your life in the direction that speaks to you. Paired with an online psychiatric evaluation, you can get to the root of the challenges in your life, determine if any mental health diagnoses are appropriate, and leave with an action plan that will help you route your course to feeling well again.
Find the reasons for your burnout
It might sound simple, but sometimes it’s hard to see why you’re so burnt out when you’re already burnt out. A life coach and online psychiatric evaluator can help you drill down into the sources of your burnout. This understanding of your situation can give you a better idea of where to make change, be it your career, personal relationships, or life path.
Prioritize yourself and your needs
You’ve probably heard the term “work-life balance” before. And when you’ve seen it, it’s probably been in the context of someone who works too much and spends too little energy on the “life” part of the equation. Burnout is a critical time to focus on work-life balance, and our life coaching services can help you focus on prioritizing yourself and your needs.
You may have spent so long ignoring your needs that you’re disconnected from what they are. Your life coach can help you reconnect to yourself in ways that develop your self-awareness, which can then lead you to a full understanding of your needs. You can then begin the work of prioritizing those needs; this work can be anything from small adjustments to a whole-life remodel. This may seem intimidating, but as you introspect, you’ll develop the motivation to meet your own needs by seeing yourself as worthy of prioritizing.
Set boundaries and stick to them
When burnout comes from poor boundaries and an inability to say no, your life coach can help you introspect to gain a better understanding of yourself and increase your self-esteem. Boundaries sound simple, but in practice, it takes a great deal of self-awareness to say “This is all I can commit to,” and stick to that statement. With the support of a life coach, you’ll be more comfortable establishing boundaries around things like workload or home commitments, making room in your life for balance.
Find your “why” and follow it
You may have lost motivation because your work or life responsibilities aren’t in line with your values and goals. Life coaching for burnout can help you figure out what your goals are and what changes you want to make to pursue a more fulfilling future for yourself. When you can see a “why” in what you’re doing, you can lean into that “why” to guide you instead of working just to work. This focus on what interests you and meshes well with you as a person can help restart motivation because your actions will make more sense and lead you to the things you want in life.
Ready to find motivation again?
Patterns Psychiatry offers life coaching in Texas, Minnesota, and Iowa from experienced psychiatric practitioners who are ready to help you rediscover motivation as you heal from burnout combined with any other mental health challenges you may be facing. When you’re ready to get started, connect with us to book your first telehealth appointment. When you’re looking to make changes in your life, but aren’t sure where to start, or aren’t able to muster up the motivation to start, life coaching is a great first step toward a future free from burnout.
